The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1887-06-16
NAvELS.
Can They He Made to Bear? Girdling
and Sitting ths Bark.

Can They he Made to Bear Girdiing
and Sitting the Bark.
| Correspondence Of the Falatka News
ORMoND-oN-THE-HALIF June ID.
In former article we limited at the
idea that non-bearing fruit trees may be
made to bear; my experience teaches me
that it is a fact, but the modus-operandi
is so simple that when told it, but few
will ever try it. The more simple rem
edy, the less liable we all are to believe
there is anything in it. Years ago a
blacksmith accidentally discovered that
with pounded glass and borax he could
weld steel, and / think he obtained a
patent; when 10, soon after, a neighbOr-
ing welder of the hammer, and blower
of the bellows, left out the glass and pro-
duced the same result. When the wise
ruler with his gorgeous chariot and long
train, came to Christ to be cured of di-
sease, and the Lord said to him, go
wash in Jordan, be cured" did he go:
No, Jordan was not a high-tOned and
fashionable river to bathe in at that
time, and the remedy was altogether
too simple and cheap. l suppose he went
home and tried Warmers Safe Cure"
The natives here tell us that when our
melons run too much to vines whip
them with brush. and they will set
fruit"
In June, three years ago, when the
navel orange was greatly in disfavor, we
| were persuaded to saw over and regraft
thirty-eight four year old trees of that
variety. They were large trees, but
think the whole thirty-eight did not then
have altogether five hundred oranges,
while single trees near them, of other
varieties, had half that number at the
same age. AT about two feet from the
ground sawed the tree nearly off, leav-
ing, perhaps, one inch thickness of wood
and bark, then bent the top over to the
ground. / then put into the standing
stump two or three slip graft scions, be-
tween the bark and wood, leaving two or
three buds exposed, waxed the seams
and bound with UNFINISHED marline. We
were pleased with the result, not every
scion took, but from one to three in
every tree of the hirty-eight took, grew
| vigorously, and some bore fruit the next
season.
Now comes the interesting part. Those
noble trees (the tops) that had c-s-s-d SO
for not bearing began to bloom, set fruit,
and continued to do so for nine months,
(until sawed them Off having bloom
and fruit of all sizes, so that the winter
following 1 sent to the New Orleans Ex-
position a bunch of blossoms and fifty
three sizes of oranges; the largest, a ripe
one, weighing thirty-three ounces, all
picked from one tree the same day. The
trees lying on the ground, with bloom,
ripe oranges and all sizes between, were
a great curiosity.
Years ago when / was North, gentle
man showed me, near his house, six
seventeen-year-old Baldwin apple trees.
They were the largest apple trees l ever
saw, and loaded with fruit. He said
they had always bloomed heavily, but
had never matured an apple until that
season. Then he showed me a scar on
the body of the trees, where, in the
spring, he had taken off piece of the
bark six inches wide entirely around the
tree.
When 1 saw my poor navels lying on
the ground, loaded with fruit white and
fragrant with bloom, the circumstance
of the apple trees occurred to me, and
began to think there might he such a
thing as too much pigor in fruit tree,
4 III IL ,I,.t al. a.. - 4
by checking it's growth it would turn its
attention to fruit. The next spring
| girdled some of the limbs on one or two
navel trees. In the fall l had to prop
those limbs up, they were SO loaded with
fruit. On others 1 slitted the bark down
they ought to bear.
| had fig tree ten years old, it had
never borne a fig, was mad and slashed
the bark of the body from the limbs to
the ground; it manifested it's pleasure
by bearing more fruit then we could con-
sumo, and this year is again loaded. l
had previously dug up and thrown away
fifteen fig trees, now am planting more.
There are now standing in my nursery,
near a building, two one year old orange
buds, not over two feet high they We're
girdled by wood lice; one of them had
over fifty blossoms and set the fruit,
then died; / heaped the earth up about
the other, above the girdle, and it now
has an orange one third grown. This
subject is very interesting to me, and no
doubt many of your readers have noticed
the same cause and effect. 1 am not
scientific enough to explain the cause,
but would like very much to have any
| of your readers that are capable do so
through your columns.
| NUMBER NINE